Songoftheday 11/20/21 - Rubia huh? Papi screamin' out of they mouth, bombshell just a second mami wanna speak out...
"What Ya Want" - Eve & Nokio
from the album Ryde of Die, Vol. 1 and Let There Be Eve...Ruff Ryders' First Lady (both 1999)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #29 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 7
Today's song comes from rapper Eve Jeffers, who grew up in Philadelphia, who originally started her music career by dubbing herself "Eve Of Destruction" when she was signed to Dr. Dre's Aftermath record label. In the spring of 1999 Eve appeared on the Roots' top-40 pop hit "You Got Me", though she didn't get credited separately as Erykah Badu did. Moving over to Interscope's Ruff Ryders label, helmed by produced Kaseem "Swizz Beatz" Dean, the rapper was featured of the imprint's first album compilation Ryde Of Die Vol. 1 in the spring of 1999 as well. That album had cuts from many of the big names in hip-hop at the time, like DMX, the LOX, and Mase. The lead single from the set, "Ryde Or Die", featured the Lox, Eve, Drag-On, and DMX. It was mostly a hype track that radio wasn't touching, but still spent a couple weeks on Billboard magazine's R&B chart peaking at #96 in April. The second release put out their "ringer", Jay-Z, with his "Jigga My Ni**a", which took a slow ride up the charts (it will be a future SOTD). The third offering from the record would feature Eve along with Tamir "Nokio" Ruffin from the R&B vocal group Dru Hill. "What Ya Want", written by Eve and Swizz Beatz, the record rolls on a quite radio-friendly Latin beat as Eve throws down brag verses usually reserved for the men in the genre, as she lays down where she's from and where she thinks she's going...
"What Ya Want" became Eve's first top-40 crossover pop hit in September of 1999. The song climbed to #9 on Billboard's R&B chart, while topping their Rap Singles list. The Ruff Ryderz album, released in May of that year, spent a week at #1 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell over a million copies. The Let There Be Eve album, which had a different remix of "What Ya'll Want", came out in September as the song was cresting, and also spent a week at #1 on the Billboard 200, selling over two million copies.
A fourth single from the Ruff Ryders Vol. 1 album, "Down Bottom" by Drag-On and Juvenile, spent 25 weeks on the R&B Singles chart, though it didn't reach the top-40, stopping at #43, while "bubbling under" the Hot 100 at #118. Both Eve and the Ruff Ryders album will be back to the series.
(6/10)
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Up tomorrow: This singer/songwriter has all he needs.
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